It was fifty years ago today that President John F. Kennedy delivered one of the shortest and most memorable inaugural addresses by a U.S. president.   As most people know, the speech was the product of a collaboration between Kennedy and Ted Sorensen, Special Counsel to the President, and his speechwriter.   But what you don’t know is that Kennedy changed the speech on the fly as he delivered it, departing from the agreed-upon and much revised text in the moment – even making a small but essential change to the most famous sentence in the speech, and one of the most famous sentences in American history. 

Work began on the speech in November, and intensified around Christmas 1960.  Sorensen sent a telegram on December 23rd to 10 leading thinkers of the day – including Adlai Stevenson, Dean Rusk, and J. K. Galbraith – asking for ideas.  Responses varied, but the most voluminous was a 2-and-a-half page single-spaced letter from Stevenson with over a dozen suggestions for things Kennedy could talk about.  Many of them made it into the speech, including “a frank acknowledgement of the changing equilibrium in the world and the grave dangers and difficulties which the West faces for the first time.” 

The speech began to take something like its final shape on January 10th, 10 days out, when President Kennedy flew to Palm Beach and dictated a draft to his secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, based on an earlier written draft by Sorensen.  On the flight back, a week later, 3 days out, Kennedy wrote a draft in his own hand so that there would be a holographic version for history.   I’m looking at a facsimile of that handwritten draft now, and it follows the final closely in general, with many minor emendations to phrases here and there.  When you get to the end, and the famous phrases “asking not,” you see the following in Kennedy’s difficult scrawl:

My fellow Americans, ask not what your country is going to do for you – ask what you can do for your country.

Then, in the final, large-print reading copy that Kennedy took to the podium, the sentence had become this:

And so, my fellow Americans:  ask not what your country will do for you – ask what you can do for your country. 

What’s astounding about that phrase is precisely that it’s not memorable, because of the lack of repetition.   And what’s even more amazing is that when Kennedy actually delivered the speech, he changed that sentence on the fly to:

And so, my fellow Americans:  ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country. 

A small change, yes, but one that turned a good line into an unforgettable one.  And it was ad-libbed.  (Kennedy made a number of other small changes as well, simplifying the diction and eliminating words as he went, but none as vital as this one.)

In speaking, you have to sweat the details.  Tiny changes in phrasing make huge differences in impact.